Chapter 7 - The Ambush at Sycamore
The rain had turned into a steady, freezing downpour by the time I crested the hill on Sycamore Drive.
I killed the van’s headlights three blocks away, coasting quietly along the curb under the dripping willow oaks.
The neighborhood was dark. The power line on our utility pole had been severed at the meter box, plunging our entire property into pitch blackness.
Parked in my driveway, with its engine idling silently, was an unmarked black Chevy Tahoe with government-style tinted windows. The front door of my house hung open, its deadbolt splintered from the jamb.
I didn't take the front walk.
I slipped through Mrs. Gable’s hedge line, staying low beneath the kitchen window. Through the rain-streaked glass, a narrow beam of a high-intensity tactical flashlight swept across the kitchen cabinets.
"Clear the pantry!" a harsh, gravelly voice ordered from inside. "Check the disposal unit! Don't leave a single trace of ceramic or glassware in that sink!"
"Boss, the drain trap is glued PVC," a second voice replied. "We have to cut the pipe."
"Then cut it! We have eight minutes before the local sheriff’s cars clear the highway!"
Two men. Professional, methodical, moving with the quiet efficiency of men used to scrubbing evidence from compromised sites.
I didn't go through the kitchen. I slipped around to the attached garage, entered through the side pedestrian door, and retrieved a four-foot steel framing pry-bar from my tool chest.
Cold steel. Balanced. Heavy.
I moved through the mudroom into the dark hallway.
The floorboards didn't creak; I had built this house with my own hands five years ago. I knew every joist, every cross-beam, every inch of oak that could bear weight without a sound.
The beam of the flashlight illuminated the kitchen counter.
One man, wearing black tactical trousers and a rain shell, was kneeling beneath the sink with an electric reciprocating saw, positioning the blade against the white PVC drain pipe. The second man stood by the refrigerator, holding a heavy canvas duffle bag, his right hand resting near a holstered Glock on his hip.
On the kitchen island, sitting inside a clear plastic evidence bag, was Sarah’s lavender travel mug and the small amber dropper bottle Marlene had shoved behind the cereal boxes.
They had found it.
"Hurry up with that pipe," the standing man said, checking his tactical watch. "Sterling just texted. The deputy at the hospital is talking to the DA. The old lady’s window is closing fast."
The saw whined to life, its high-pitched motor tearing through the plastic under the sink.
The sound covered my approach.
I stepped out of the shadow behind the pantry door.
I didn't yell. I didn't announce myself.
I swung the framing bar in a flat, horizontal arc, striking the standing guard’s right knee with sickening force.
The man let out a choked gasp of agony as his leg buckled beneath him. He crashed onto the hardwood, his hand clawing frantically for his sidearm. Before his fingers could clear the holster, I drove the flat heel of my work boot into his wrist, pinning it against the floor, and swept his weapon three feet across the linoleum into the dark.
The saw under the sink stopped instantly.
The second man scrambled backward out from the cabinet, turning with a tactical flashlight in his left hand and a combat blade in his right.
"Back off!" he snarled, slashing the blade through the air.
The beam of his flashlight hit my eyes, blinding me for half a second.
He lunged, aiming the blade straight for my abdomen.
Muscle memory from ten years of framing roofs and swinging twenty-ounce hammers took over. I stepped inside the blade's arc, parrying his forearm with the steel bar, and drove my shoulder directly into his sternum.
The impact slammed him against the marble island.
The breath exploded from his lungs in a wet wheeze. The knife clattered to the floor. I hooked the crook of the pry-bar behind his neck, pulled him down, and drove my knee into his midsection. He collapsed onto the kitchen rug, clutching his ribs, gasping for air in the dark.
I stood over them, chest heaving, the rain hammering against the kitchen window.
I reached onto the island, picked up the clear plastic bag containing the lavender mug and the amber bottle, and zipped it securely inside my jacket.
Then, the floorboards above my head creaked.
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A third person was in the house.
Upstairs. In the attic.
